Don’t miss a “last chance” to find special gifts, holiday decorations, tasty food, and many more necessities for the holidays. The Last Chance Holiday Bazaar–a favorite event of procrastinating holiday shoppers–arrives at the Hood River County Fairgrounds Saturday and Sunday, December 10-11, from 10am to 4pm each day in the Community Building. The bazaar is presented by Griffith Motors, and organized by the Hood River County Fair Board. Admission and parking are free.

The Last Chance Holiday Bazaar is the perfect event for people seeking unique gifts, delights for the holiday table, handcrafted items, gourmet food, and holiday decorations. The bazaar will offer shoppers a final opportunity before the holidays to find one-of-a-kind gifts, holiday decorating ideas, artwork, scented products, and much more. A wonderful collection of crafters, jewelry makers, bakers, soft good makers, soap makers, photographers, and other creative people will be offering their best at the bazaar—more than 40 booths in all. Continue reading →

Socialism is, and always will, be a colossal failure. This is for the simple reason that even the best of men eventually grow tired of getting ripped off. An entire economy based on theft – even legalized theft – cannot possibly work.

We’re always told that the only reason socialism has never worked is that the right people haven’t been in charge. Well, if there were ever a group of men who were the right people to put in charge of an experiment in socialism, it was our Pilgrim forebears.

They were godly, steeped in Scripture, and pure in motive. As Governor Bradford said, these were “good and honest men.” In fact, the entire purpose of their relocation to the New World was for “the glory of God and the advancement of the Christian faith.” (Yes, America was founded as a Christian nation.) Continue reading →

Although he was not my first choice for President, I voted for President-Elect Donald Trump because he was far preferable to the Wicked Witch of the East. While it is true that he does not meet all of my high standards for charm, wisdom, humility, and political correctness, I realize that I am probably the only one who does! It is funny how that works.

Of course, Donald’s detractors do not even get that far in evaluating him. Because he is a fabulously wealthy Caucasian businessman from the Republican Party, he is automatically racist, sexist, homophobic, and everything else that Democrats see in opponents but never in themselves. In a word, he and his followers are “deplorable” for opposing their Leftist ideology. That must include me, as I am all of those things (except fabulously wealthy). Such critiques must strike even Democrats as shallow. Continue reading →

Having achieved major goals, US should refocus EPA and other environmental agencies

Donald Trump plans to “roll back progress” on climate change, energy and the environment, activists, regulators and their media allies assert. The claim depends on one’s definition of “progress.”

These interest groups define “progress” as ever-expanding laws, regulations, bureaucracies and power, to bring air and water emissions of every description down to zero, to prevent diseases that they attribute to manmade pollutants and forestall “dangerous manmade climate change.” Achieving those goals requires controlling nearly every facet of our economy, industries, lives, livelihoods and living standards. Continue reading →

The housing affordability crisis is turning Portland, already one of the whitest cities in America, into one that is even whiter. Census data indicate that, between 2010 and 2014, the number of whites living in the city of Portland grew by 30,500, or 6.8%, but the number of blacks shrank by 4,500, or 11.5%.
Some of those blacks moved to Portland suburbs, but most moved out of the Portland area completely. While the number of whites in the Portland urban area grew by 94,000, the number of blacks shrank by 3,400.

Even before 2010, Portland’s high housing prices were negatively affecting blacks and other low-income groups. Census data show that, between 2000 and 2010, the share of households headed by whites living in single-family detached homes declined by 3.3%, but the share of households headed by blacks living in such homes declined 16.1%. Continue reading →

Fresh fruit and vegetable market says goodbye to loyal customers
After forty-three years operating as one of Portland’s most popular farm-to-table produce markets, The Barn will close on November 23rd , the day before Thanksgiving.
Generations of families have enjoyed The Barn’s hand-irrigated, hand-harvested fruits and vegetables. Shelia Trapold, co-owner with husband Tom, explains the couple’s upcoming transition to a different lifestyle on the company’s Facebook page. “We’ve decided it’s time for us to down-size some of our commitments and responsibilities; to spend more time together enjoying the outdoors, traveling, our horses, and our friends.”
“This is a lot of work!” says Shelia, whose birthday just happens to fall on The Barn’s last day of business. Continue reading →

The American people have roundly rejected a third Obama term and legacy of deplorable policies that were too often imposed via executive edicts, with minimal attempts to work with Congress or the states.

This election shows that hard-working Americans do not want their country and its constitutional, energy and economic systems “fundamentally transformed.” They want America to be great and exceptional again. They want all people to live under the same laws and have the same opportunities, rights and responsibilities for making their lives, families, communities and nation better than they found them. Continue reading →

I was always a baseball fanatic. I attended the High School of Commerce in Boston, MA. and played baseball for three years. In 1955 my family moved to Los Angeles so I missed my senior year of baseball.
In ’55 I entered a T.V. talent show competition and was subsequently awarded an academic/music scholarship to Loyola University. Loyola, then an all-male school—now Loyola Marymount—had a very good male chorus. I was selected by the Director to be that season’s soloist.
On occasion the chorus would be joined by young women from local high schools and colleges. One of the female singers was Helen Estevez de Guzman. Helen was on scholarship—music and academic—at Mt. St, Mary’s College. As it happily turned out, in 1957 Helen and I were wed. For this blessing, I am perpetually giving thanks. Helen and I will be celebrating our 59th anniversary this year on…Thanksgiving Day. Continue reading →

The following is from an Army Aviator who takes us on a trip down memory lane:
“It was just before Thanksgiving ’67 and we were ferrying dead and wounded from a large GRF west of Pleiku. We had run out of body bags by noon, so the Hook (CH-47 CHINOOK) was pretty rough in the back.

Martha ” Colonel Maggie” Raye

All of a sudden, we heard a ‘take-charge’ woman’s voice in the rear. There was the singer and actress, Martha Raye, with a SF (Special Forces) beret and jungle fatigues, with subdued markings, helping the wounded into the Chinook, and carrying the dead aboard.
‘Maggie’ had been visiting her SF ‘heroes’ out ‘west.’ We took off, short of fuel, and headed to the USAF hospital pad at Pleiku. As we all started unloading our sad pax’s, a ‘Smart Mouth’ USAF Captain said to Martha: “Ms. Raye, with all these dead and wounded to process, there would not be time for your show!” Continue reading →

There have been many negative comments about the Clackamas County Commission’s choice to study changing the long term zoning designations on three areas amounting to 1625 acres. These areas are currently planned as rural reserve. We proposed to mark them as “undesignated”. The total of these properties are less than 2% of the county’s proposed rural reserve designation and less than 0.5% (1/2 of 1 percent) of the county’s foundation farmland.

This proposal is not as aggressive as what the Clackamas County Business alliance and the County’s own Economic Development Commission support. Even the opponents of development agree that if development ever occurred it would be 25 years out. No economic development study was done prior to these lands being designated. Metro says they have no responsibility for economic development. But as a county it’s our responsibility to look out for economic development. Urban rural designations were and experiment to create 50 year rural reserves. It has not played out in any of the other counties in the state. Urban/rural reserves were so screwed up in Washington County that the legislature had to intervene. Continue reading →